Thursday, February 07, 2008

Video plus! Dr. Ruehl's Realm of Bizarre News

Tabloid Baby pal, contributor , columnist and music video starDr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. is back with his one hundred and forty eighth list of the Top Thirteen stories in the week's "Realm of Bizarre News":

* Was the luxury liner "Queen Victoria" cursed when a bottle of champagne swung against its side by the Duchess of Cornwall failed to break during its naming ceremony? Quite possibly, considering that several of its passengers were hit by a norovirus on only its 2nd voyage to sea!

* Bizarre crop circle sheep! Approximately 100 of the woolly critters on a farm in Herefordshire, England formed a perfect circle, on their own initiative, maintaining it for 10 minutes! Then, a short time later, 3 fields away, another group configured themselves in a circular formation for roughly 10 minutes!

Trivia Q: What is the term meaning "sheeplike?" (Answer below)

* Ouch! Ouch! As a man was collecting crocodile eggs in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia, a croc suddenly grabbed him, shaking him violently. A rescuer fired 2 shots: one hit the croc, the other hit the man in the arm, who was then helicoptered to a hospital to be treated for both croc bites and a bullet wound!

* A Hindu priest in Chhattisgarh, India committed suicide by consuming poison, claiming that he would emerge from beyond the grave after 3 days. His followers kept a vigil outside the locked room where his body was being kept, but, alas, he never returned to the living!

* An automotive Bermuda Triangle encircles a 5-block zone of the Empire State Building where several cars daily suddenly stall. Rather than a paranormal cause, experts hypothesize that radio frequency interference from the building may be jamming keyless entry systems on afflicted vehicles.

* Acclaimed opera tenor Juan Diego Florez swallowed a fish bone which became lodged in his throat and caused an infection that forced him out of commission for two long months.

Please, if you are going to eat fish, fillet it first. We cannot have this befalling any of you!

* Matthew 5:30 advises: "And, if they right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee." A man in Hayden, Idaho took this verse seriously: when he saw the mark of the Devil in his right hand (possibly the satanic '666'), he cut it off with a circular saw, had the presence of mind to place a tourniquet around the stump, then microwaved the hand until it was withered so it could not be reattached. Definitely a man of principle (also, a strong candidate for our "Doofus of the Week " award).

* Gang in Sweden is hiding dwarves inside sports bags that are placed in the luggage compartments of buses...the pint-sized thieves then rifle through the other luggage, stealing any valuables contained within!

* An infant planet has been discovered in orbit about the star TW Hydrae, some 180 light years from earth, which is only 10 million years old! It is a huge body, some 9.8 times the dimensionality of Jupiter. This finding demonstrates that planet formation is commonplace, occurring early in each star's evolution, arguing for the possibility of life evolving on all of them! This discovery is indeed proof that the universe is teeming with life!

* Clever Alcon blue butterflies coat their larvae with an ant smell and leave them on plants where deceived ants take them back to their colony and nurture them!

* A terminally ill dad from Blackburn, England had made arrangements for his burial after his death, but was stunned to find his own tombstone already placed in the cemetery, complete with his photo (but with no death date added).

* An Italian airport in Bari has recruited a large golden eagle named Cheyenne to chase foxes away from the runway! Traps, poison, and ultrasound have proved futile in scaring off the vulpines.

* Bad idea! A female bank robber in Sandy Springs, Georgia, was nabbed waiting for a bus after getting a satchel of cash (a dye bomb inside it exploded, spraying her and the money with orange ink, making her easy to identify).

Trivia Answer: "Ovine" mean sheeplike.

TOP TIP: Dr. Ruehl's television pilot, "Crimetime Suspense Theatre," airs tomorrow (Friday) evening at 9 pm on Time Warner's Los Angeles area cable system. The show features highlights from two suspense films-- Too Late For Tears and Colonel March of Scotland Yard-- and two mystery series: D.O.A. and The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu.

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"Sad, funny, undeniably authentic, Tabloid Baby tells the tale of what befell too much of mainstream television news over the past couple of decades as the bad drove out the good."
--Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes

"Burt was there for the birthing of tabloid, he became the heart of the genre, and now he's written the bible."
--Maury Povich

"Dear Burt: While you always had quite a flair for the dramatic, you never had much regard for the truth... Apparently you can't be bothered to read anything carefully. Maybe that is why you, like O'Reilly, make half your crap up.
Glad to hear you finally got sober." -- Barry Nolan, 04.12.08